Berlin Wall

1 Germany Stop a random handful of Berliners on the street and ask where you might still find a stretch of the Berlin Wall in this, the 20th year since communism collapsed here. A surprising number will not have a clue. Although much of the wall was razed soon after Nov. 9, 1989, sections that weren't given to museums, sold as souvenirs or ground into underlay for autobahns can be seen -- if you know where to go.

A few years ago I had some fun with a younger colleague who had written a story about then-Sen. Rick Santorum drawing parallels between the “hubris” of Senate Democrats and that of “German dictator Adolf Hitler.” “Oh, that Hitler?” I asked. Surely, I thought, the qualification wasn't necessary. I initially felt the same way the other day when I read in the Los Angeles Times about how protesters in Ukraine had toppled a monument to “Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.” YEAR IN REVIEW: Highs, lows and an 'other' at the Supreme Court What's next?

It seems everyone has a chunk of the Berlin Wall these days. Half a century ago, the wall was underway and soon turned into the concrete barrier dividing the German city and the world. Toppled in 1989, the wall that was a powerful symbol of repression and the Cold War has migrated to cities across the globe. Context [(800) 691-6036], based in Philadelphia, is launching a new Walking the Wall tour in Berlin that emphasizes the political and social history of the barrier.

If any Pop & Hiss readers were wondering where your intrepid dance music writer was the last week, I'm thrilled to say that the short answer is this: a Jamaican vegan trap-music bar with a "Cool Runnings" theme and a fake beach that abuts the Berlin Wall in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Sure, Berghain's just down the street. But for what it's worth, I'm siding with YAAM as my favorite nightclub in Berlin, which is the best nightclub city on Earth right now. I was over there visiting an ex-patriated old friend and full-time Berliner musician.

November 6, 2009 | James Mann, James Mann, a former Times staff writer, is author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His most recent book is "The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War."

With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tape of Ronald Reagan's famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate is likely to be played and replayed. "Mr. Gorbachev," he declared, "tear down this wall!" But how significant was the speech, really? How important was its seemingly defiant tone in reuniting Berlin and "winning" the Cold War? To many American conservatives, the answer to those questions is simple: Reagan stared down the Soviet Union. And the Berlin Wall speech stands as the dramatic symbol of Reagan's challenge and triumph.

She was born on the west side of the Berlin Wall. He was born on the east side. But artists Jasmin Siddiqui and Falk Lehmann worked side-by-side for days to paint a poignant 12-foot-tall reminder of the Cold War on a chunk of the Berlin Wall that stands next to Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The artwork is spray-painted on the "East Berlin side" of the concrete wall that for 28 years split families, blocked workers from their jobs and prevented Germans from freely traveling inside their divided country.

On Saturday, Germany will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest and grimmest construction projects in history — the building of the Berlin Wall. Photographs of the wall, which overnight brutally severed streets, rail lines and families, have been on display in front of Berlin government buildings for several months. On Saturday, the memorial events will last all day and include a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the victims of the former communist East German government. The 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, in 2009, attracted a lot more attention in the U.S. It was a victory we like to claim, especially triumphalist conservatives.

BERLIN -- Standing at a symbol of democracy's triumph over communism, President Obama will announce his hopes to further reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal as he tries to outline a vision for a post-Cold War "national and citizen activism," officials said. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday, Obama will say he wants to go beyond reductions outlined in the New START treaty, seeking an additional one-third cut in the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, if the Russians agree to do the same, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Five years ago, when Americans had not yet made up their minds on their choice for president, Europe had. More than 200,000 people crowded the streets of Berlin - a favorite backdrop for U.S. politicians reaching for history - to hear then-candidate Barack Obama promise to turn the page on the unpopular policies of George W. Bush. "Germany meets the superstar," the news magazine Der Spiegel proclaimed on its cover. As he heads to Europe on Sunday for a visit that will culminate with a sequel to that Berlin speech three days later, Obama has been demoted to mere president.

BERLIN - More than two decades after the Berlin Wall came down, Germany's eastern half remains a very different place from the west - older, whiter and more likely to be out of work, according to results published Friday from the country's first census since reunification. Unemployment rates in the five states that made up Communist East Germany ranged from 3.3% to 4.4% in the nationwide survey, which was conducted in May 2011. By contrast, the jobless rate in the former West Germany ranged from 1.7% in Bavaria to 2.8% in North Rhine-Westphalia.

John le Carré's novels have responded brilliantly to the absence of the Cold War, which was, from 1963's classic "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" to "The Secret Pilgrim" in 1990, their traditional domain. In one sense, though, whether set before or after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the subject of Le Carré's fiction has never changed. A theme always was, and remains, the question: How can the individual hope to take any effective action in the murk of politics? Le Carré's most famous (and best loved)

WASHINGTON -- When John Kerry's political foes complained in 2004 that he “looked French” and ordered Swiss cheese on his Philadelphia cheese steaks, the Democratic presidential nominee began keeping his affinities for Europe bien cache -- well hidden. But now that he is America's chief diplomat, snail eating comes with the job and Kerry's Europhilia is back with a vengeance. In his first trip to Europe as Secretary of State this week, Kerry spoke in French, German and Italian, warmed to discussions of European cuisines and lifestyles, and recited a Thomas Jefferson epigram -- in French.

WASHINGTON - When John F. Kerry's political foes complained in 2004 that he "looked French" and ordered Swiss cheese on his Philadelphia cheese steaks, the Democratic presidential nominee began keeping his affinities for Europe bien caché - well hidden. But now that he is America's chief diplomat, snail eating comes with the job and Kerry's Europhilia is back with a vengeance. In his first trip to Europe as secretary of State, Kerry this week spoke in French, German and Italian, warmed to discussions of European cuisines and lifestyles, and recited a Thomas Jefferson epigram in French.

June 12, 2012 | By Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

MEXICO CITY - When Mexico's long-ruling party was ousted by voters 12 years ago, giddy celebrants hailed the event as something like the fall of the Berlin Wall. For seven decades, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, had governed virtually unchallenged, aided by election trickery, a well-honed ability to buy off potential troublemakers and, when that didn't work, an iron fist. Its historic loss in 2000, and its tumble to third place six years later, led some to even imagine a Mexico without the PRI. Now the PRI is on the verge of an epic comeback.

She was born on the west side of the Berlin Wall. He was born on the east side. But artists Jasmin Siddiqui and Falk Lehmann worked side-by-side for days to paint a poignant 12-foot-tall reminder of the Cold War on a chunk of the Berlin Wall that stands next to Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The artwork is spray-painted on the "East Berlin side" of the concrete wall that for 28 years split families, blocked workers from their jobs and prevented Germans from freely traveling inside their divided country.